never too old for Lego —

Apollo 13 crew immortalized in custom Lego set

Apollo 13 splashed down 45 years ago this week.

This Friday will be the 45th anniversary of the splashdown landing of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. How best to celebrate the successful return of the crew to Earth after an oxygen tank exploded en route to the moon? Why, a set of custom Lego minifigs, of course.

The sets came about when Apollo expert Chris Spain approached the company with the idea of producing something in time for the splashdown anniversary. "Chris sent us a huge amount of research, designs and feedback," Minifigs.me director Nick Savage said in a statement. "His expertise and passion for the subject really is something to behold. We worked together for weeks to get them perfect, discussing everything from the precise placement of the metal tabs on suit valves to the way each astronaut wore their watches. We’ve made something very special as a result."

The resulting figures are based on the actual likenesses of the real-life men rather than the actors from the 1995 Ron Howard movie, and the level of detail on the sets is spectacular. Crew patches and insignias are accurate, and each member's space suit is subtly different. Each piece is custom printed, right down to the men's names on their ID tags.

The crew set manages to pack in space helmets, a stellar backdrop, and a replica of the CO2 scrubber that helped provide them air enough to make the journey back to Earth. Kranz's set comes with a pair of flight plans—one completely accurate, the other cleverly referencing the "failure is not an option" tagline used for the movie—and a backdrop of NASA Mission Control. Both sets are available in classic Lego yellow or caucasian flesh tones, and the three astronauts can also be ordered separately.

The Apollo 13 crew joins another real-life astronaut, Canadian Chris Hadfield, in getting a Lego tribute. Hadfield's comes with a guitar, in homage to his orbital performance of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."

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War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

When creating Ultima Online, Richard Garriott had grand dreams. He and Starr Long planned on implementing a virtual ecology into their massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It was an ambitious system, one that would have cows that graze and predators that eat herbivores. However, once the game went live a small problem had arisen...

War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

War Stories | Ultima Online: The virtual ecology

When creating Ultima Online, Richard Garriott had grand dreams. He and Starr Long planned on implementing a virtual ecology into their massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It was an ambitious system, one that would have cows that graze and predators that eat herbivores. However, once the game went live a small problem had arisen...

I'm thinking that Lego would release a Babylon 5 set before a Stargate one unfortunately. I say this as a fan of both series happily enjoying my Lego Star Wars sets and wondering if he could build Serenity out of the parts...now I'm sad...back to Legos!

I work in finance, at a fairly large firm. One day, Jim Lovell talked at my work. It was one of the true highlights of my geek career. I think I was in the first 3 for the standing ovation.

He took questions after, and discussed the details of what really happened with Apollo 13 (weather related... things got too cold and reacted wrong to it - sad that we didn't learn that lesson before Shuttle Challenger). I was too in awe - I should have asked him if the "guided to the aircraft carrier by bioluminescence" part was true. [EDIT - yes i know it's true since then, well, Internet]

Also, he runs a couple restaurants with his son Jay on the North Shore of Chicago. I think I'll pick up a couple sets of these - one for me, one to drop in the mailbox of his son's restaurant.

I always heard it was actually originally Duck Tape. Made for the arm forces, one of the original mil-specs was waterproofing, so yeah, a duck. Only later did it get into "civilian" world, where it made more sense to call it duct tape, since that is where it's so useful.

Their new unnamed product was made of thin cotton duck tape coated in waterproof polyethylene (plastic) with a layer of rubber-based gray adhesive ("Polycoat") bonded to one side.[6][14][15][16][17][18] It was easy to apply and remove, and was soon adapted to repair military equipment quickly, including vehicles and weapons.[14] This tape, colored in army-standard matte olive drab, was nicknamed "duck tape" by the soldiers.[19] Various theories have been put forward for the nickname, including the descendant relation to cotton duck fabric, the waterproof characteristics of a duck bird, and even the 1942 amphibious military vehicle DUKW which was pronounced "duck".[20]

I always heard it was actually originally Duck Tape. Made for the arm forces, one of the original mil-specs was waterproofing, so yeah, a duck. Only later did it get into "civilian" world, where it made more sense to call it duct tape, since that is where it's so useful.

General 'duct tape' is pretty bad for duct work. You need the foil tape instead.

I always heard it was actually originally Duck Tape. Made for the arm forces, one of the original mil-specs was waterproofing, so yeah, a duck. Only later did it get into "civilian" world, where it made more sense to call it duct tape, since that is where it's so useful.

General 'duct tape' is pretty bad for duct work. You need the foil tape instead.

Agreed. Works pretty good for sealing leaky canoes and putting square filters in round holes though...

Which is why it ends with "This story originally appeared on Wired UK," yes. Is that a problem?

Yes, we have high standards for Ars and one of them is to use the new UK crew to surpass the low quality of Wired UK. The point of them seems to be defeated by these copy and paste jobs.

I would like Ars to talk about this subject in their own voice. Not to be an amplifier of a messenger that was called out as poor in the hiring of Seb and the founding of ArsUK.

If they are going to copy over Wired UK articles, place that it the title so we don't give a false message with our click traffic. At the end might work as a apology but I want to not need one from Ars.

I always heard it was actually originally Duck Tape. Made for the arm forces, one of the original mil-specs was waterproofing, so yeah, a duck. Only later did it get into "civilian" world, where it made more sense to call it duct tape, since that is where it's so useful.

Which is why it ends with "This story originally appeared on Wired UK," yes. Is that a problem?

Yes, it is a problem. There are lots of web sites in the Conde Nast empire - are we going to start seeing stories from all of them? Why not just have a sidebar with links to interesting stories on other sites? It basically seems cheap, like Ars can't be bothered to do their own stories.

Which is why it ends with "This story originally appeared on Wired UK," yes. Is that a problem?

Yes, it is a problem. There are lots of web sites in the Conde Nast empire - are we going to start seeing stories from all of them? Why not just have a sidebar with links to interesting stories on other sites? It basically seems cheap, like Ars can't be bothered to do their own stories.

Eh, I don't have a problem with it. It keeps us informed and it's labeled as such.

I'd rather Ars be working on other unique articles than one that's been posted numerous times elsewhere.

Which is why it ends with "This story originally appeared on Wired UK," yes. Is that a problem?

Yes, it is a problem. There are lots of web sites in the Conde Nast empire - are we going to start seeing stories from all of them? Why not just have a sidebar with links to interesting stories on other sites? It basically seems cheap, like Ars can't be bothered to do their own stories.

Eh, I don't have a problem with it. It keeps us informed and it's labeled as such.

I'd rather Ars be working on other unique articles than one that's been posted numerous times elsewhere.

And I'd rather just read them elsewhere. Plus, it's not labeled as such on the main menu, only at the end of the article.

I'm a space geek and I had never noticed before that Swigert's suit did not have the connections for the PLSS backpack. This makes sense, though, because as CM pilot he would have remained in orbit while Swigert and Lovell landed.

I'm a space geek and I had never noticed before that Swigert's suit did not have the connections for the PLSS backpack. This makes sense, though, because as CM pilot he would have remained in orbit while Swigert and Lovell landed.

Which is why it ends with "This story originally appeared on Wired UK," yes. Is that a problem?

Yes, it is a problem. There are lots of web sites in the Conde Nast empire - are we going to start seeing stories from all of them? Why not just have a sidebar with links to interesting stories on other sites? It basically seems cheap, like Ars can't be bothered to do their own stories.

Eh, I don't have a problem with it. It keeps us informed and it's labeled as such.

I'd rather Ars be working on other unique articles than one that's been posted numerous times elsewhere.

And I'd rather just read them elsewhere. Plus, it's not labeled as such on the main menu, only at the end of the article.

Where'd all this hate for Wired UK articles come from? Granted, I've only been reading Ars for about the past two years, but I've seen Wired UK articles show up here periodically since I started. Why has it become a problem now? It's only been recently that I've started seeing these comments approach the frequency of the "Why is this on Ars?! This is supposed to be a tech site!!" B.S.

At least this article included pics, unlike the Titanic Lego article from a few days ago...

[Where'd all this hate for Wired UK articles come from? Granted, I've only been reading Ars for about the past two years, but I've seen Wired UK articles show up here periodically since I started. Why has it become a problem now? It's only been recently that I've started seeing these comments approach the frequency of the "Why is this on Ars?! This is supposed to be a tech site!!" B.S.

At least this article included pics, unlike the Titanic Lego article from a few days ago...